A congressional race in Kentucky that many had written off as impossible for Democrats now appears to be quite competitive, as competing political actions committees affiliated with the president and Democratic governor have both launched expensive TV ad buys this week.
The 6th Congressional District is an open seat with current GOP Rep. Andy Barr running for Senate. He easily won reelection to a seventh term in 2024 by 27 percentage points, but Democrats are hopeful they can win the open seat this fall as President Donald Trump’s popularity plummets.
Republican physician and former state senator Ralph Alvarado faces Democrat Zach Dembo, an attorney and Navy veteran who previously served in the administration of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.
Political analysts still view Alvarado as a strong favorite in the central Kentucky district, which voted for Trump by 15 percentage points in 2024. However, some have moved the race into a more competitive category, citing national trends favoring Democrats and internal Democratic polls showing Dembo in a statistical tie.
More signs of a competitive race came last weekend, when Beshear’s super PAC In This Together disclosed spending $250,000 on TV ads hitting Alvarado. The ads tried to tie Alvarado to former Gov. Matt Bevin — his running mate in his unsuccessful 2019 reelection bid — and the controversial pardons the governor issued for convicted child rapists and murderers just before leaving office.
Five days later, a super PAC affiliated with Trump reported spending just shy of $300,000 on both TV ads and print mailers supporting Alvarado and attacking Dembo.
The positive ads from No Going Back PAC make no mention of Alvarado’s support for Trump or the endorsement he received from the president, but instead highlight his history as a physician and support for legislation forcing more transparency from health insurance companies.
Another pro-Dembo PAC joined the fray this week, as Kentuckians Not Corruption reported spending $162,500 on digital and TV ads touting Dembo as a candidate to fight corruption and inflation, and hitting Alvarado over Bevin-era cuts to Medicaid and education.
House Majority PAC — the main super PAC for Democrats nationwide in House races — placed $670,000 of ad buy reservations in Kentucky earlier this year, but has not yet aired any ads in the race.
House analyst says Alvarado still favorite to win, but race closer
The Cook Political Report originally categorized Kentucky’s 6th District race as “solid Republican” — meaning it is not competitive and would be won easily — but changed its rating in July to “likely Republican,” meaning Alvarado was safe, barring a major political shift. Inside Elections, another analyst firm, also shifted the race from “solid Republican” to “likely Republican” last month.
Erin Covey, Cook Political Report’s analyst for House races, says they changed the rating of the race for several reasons, including polling and national trends.
“This is almost certainly going to be a single-digit race,” Covey said. “This isn't going to be a race that Republicans win by double digits, in this political environment.”
Internal Democratic polls have shown Dembo tied with Alvarado in the low 40s, while polling across the country shows a roughly 8 percentage point shift towards Democrats compared to the 2024 election.
Covey said that even with that 8-point shift, this was a district that voted for Trump by 15 points two years ago. In the Alvarado-Dembo race, she said this shift “gives Democrats a path to victory, but it's still going to be a real uphill climb.”
“There's still a significant chunk of voters who disapprove of the job Trump is doing, but do not like Democrats,” Covey said. “And it's hard to say how many of these voters will be willing to vote for a Democrat at the end of the day.”
However, Covey said the Cook rating may change again towards Dembo if political winds shift further from now until November.
One possible scenario would be if Trump’s record-low approval rating falls even lower, amid voter discontent over the war against Iran and the rise in gas prices it has caused, along with tariffs increasing costs of a wide array of goods.
According to a daily tracking poll conducted by Civiqs during Trump’s second term, his approval rating has fallen more in Kentucky than any other state. The pollster showed Trump’s net approval at +22 in Kentucky when he was inaugurated — 59% approving and 37% disapproving — but it currently sits at -11, with 39% approving of Trump and half of respondents disapproving.
Presumably, Trump’s approval rating would be even lower in the 6th District, which votes more Democratic than the state at large. Alvarado prominently featured Trump’s endorsement in his primary campaign, but notably scrubbed references to Trump from his campaign website over the summer, with even the Trump-aligned PAC ads this week not mentioning the president.
Covey also noted that it is not unheard of for a candidate to win in a district where they’re expected to lose by 15 percentage points in “wave” elections where one party dominates. The reddest House district that Democrats flipped in 2018 was one in New York that Trump had won by 16 points in the previous presidential election — larger than the margin Trump won by in Kentucky’s 6th District.
PAC ads push Bevin back into the spotlight
Another factor that could change the dynamics of the race is if certain political messaging takes hold among the voters. Both candidates and their aligned PACs have plenty to spend on ads, but Covey said it’s unclear if any particular issue could upend the race.
She noted that pro-Dembo forces are trying to tie Alvarado to Bevin, which happened to pick up steam once the former GOP governor was arrested and incarcerated earlier this month due to an outstanding arrest warrant for contempt of court in his ongoing divorce case. He has since been released from jail.
After Bevin’s arrest, Alvarado’s campaign issued a statement that "court orders are not optional, and everyone should comply with the court's directive. Failure to do so has consequences." Alvarado also bristled at the attack ads tying him to Bevin’s pardons, saying that he “condemned Matt Bevin’s grotesque pardons and opposed them publicly and in the strongest possible terms when they happened.”
While Alvarado did twice vote for a proposed constitutional amendment to limit the pardon power of governors at the end of their terms, there is no video or media reporting from the year following Bevin’s pardons that show Alvarado criticizing them. Kentucky Public Radio reached out to Alvarado’s campaign to request evidence of the criticism, but received no response.
Kentucky Democrats also tried to make Bevin a major campaign issue in the 2020 elections, but had very little success, facing massive defeats to Republicans at all levels of government. Covey expressed some skepticism that the same strategy could work this time, six years later.
“I think it's true that Beshear is popular in this district and Bevin is toxic,” Covey said. “But is that what’s going to drive their decision making about a federal congressional race at the end of the day? Or do they, as many voters do, put (state and local) races in a separate category.”
While Trump won the district easily in 2024, so too did Beshear a year earlier, when he beat GOP challenger Daniel Cameron by a larger margin of 20 percentage points.
Covey says that Dembo cannot just rely on the national environment and souring with Trump alone to win in a district that is still challenging for any Democrat.
“He has to make the case that he can appeal to voters who don't normally vote for Democrats, at least in federal elections,” Covey said. “And that is going to be a tough thing to do.”
